Ultra displays and the challenge of unlimited resolution

Automatic calibration of multi-projector displays promises a future where very low-cost projectors can be combined into displays whose resolution, size, and fidelity exceeds anything experienced in the past. We broadly refer to these displays as Ultra displays to distinguish them from displays designed for traditional video standards and formats such as High-Definition television. Although ultra displays afford exciting new capabilities, several new challenges must be addressed. In particular, current approaches to rendering, managing and distributing content will have to. We are in the process of exploring these issues as part of an effort to build and deploy a number of ultra displays with vastly different uses. Here we describe the different display prototypes and the challenges that they illuminate for the visualization, computer graphics, and human-computer interaction communities.